Faith
When first you decide to take up the life of the pen, you set foot upon a magic road. Somewhere on that road, eventually, you come up on a crossroads, and the signposts point you deeper into the writing life, or away.
You’d think that if you had already made your decision, the choice would be simple. But no – it is not as straightforward as it seems. If you turn away, we have nothing further to talk about. But if you choose the Writer’s Path, you have to realise one thing. This is not a straight road. This is not a “tame lion”.
So. You choose the road to writerhood.
Or you THINK you do.
But several odd things happen once you veer in that direction. The thing you love – the thing you thought you could do so well and so easily – the thing that you hold to be the most precious gift of your life – uh – yeah – that. The thing about writing is that it has to be a choice that cuts both ways. You choose writing, but unless it chooses you back there is nowhere to go from here.
A friend recently took a sabbatical from his working life, one year to see if this writing lark was something that he could do. Not too long ago he wrote,
One of my goals with this sabbatical is to determine whether writing is the passion I’m supposed to be following. I didn’t expect the answer to come within two months of my time off.
Looks like writing isn’t for me.
I’ve found that I struggle far too hard against myself to get the words out on the screen. There’s something inside me that fights and resists the whole process. It’s that clenched, horrible feeling that what I’m doing just isn’t right — not in an editorial sense, but in a spiritually-exhausting sense. For now (because I can always take another go) I think I’m not meant to be writing.
My response to him was to give it a little more time, not to give up on something that he loves and that he thought would give him pleasure and reward. But there’s the choosing, right there. Here is someone who CHOSE writing – and who thinks, rightly or wrongly at this point, that writing did not choose him back. It was just not something that he enjoyed any more. At the point where a joy becomes a chore, it’s just too damned hard to keep going.
But who said it was easy? Who said it was supposed to be?
I have lived by the Word, by the Pen, for a decade now. There were times that the stories flowed, bubbled, flooded out of me – things that had to be written, had to be said, things that told themselves. Things that took me by the throat and bullied me fiercely until I gave them shape and form. And then there were the other things – the ones that stalled, that stared back at me from the computer screen, the ones that left me teetering on brinks of cliffs with no visible way down or over. The things I hung on to with grim determination, the things I had to write, and rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite. I know exactly what my friend means when he said what he said –
I’ve found that I struggle far too hard against myself to get the words out on the screen. There’s something inside me that fights and resists the whole process. It’s that clenched, horrible feeling that what I’m doing just isn’t right — not in an editorial sense, but in a spiritually-exhausting sense.
I’ve been there. I’ve fought that inner monster. There are battlefields still bloody within me that testify to those wars.
And then I picked myself up, washed off the blood, stared wryly at new scars, and staggered back onto the road again.
Don’t get me wrong – this is a personal thing. Something that makes my friend look at the writing life and choose the other road at the crossroads might be the very same thing that makes me stubbornly determined to go on, no matter what – it’s a personal thing, a personal choice, and only you can decide which voices clamouring for your attention you are willing to listen to, Because… well… this is not the last time you will come to this crossroads.
The Writer’s Path is a loop, you see. It comes back to the crossroads again and again. It might switch nature or direction as you choose it over and over, it might well take you to places that you never expected to be – but it’s still a road that somehow manages to return to the crossroads, bring you back here, and then shimmer invitingly before you once more with a whisper – Are you sure? This time, are you sure? Do you have the strength? Do you have the faith?
Because that is the only thing that will let you travel this road.
Faith.
The belief that somehow, somewhere, there IS a final destination.
The road is deceptive, and without faith it’s easy to flounder and fail. There are times that a writer plodding along will look up and see mountains. And beyond them, there is nothing but more mountains. And after a while the most deathless of devotions, the most heartfelt adoration, the most obstinate determination, they all flounder against that final rock wall that doesn’t seem to have a path around it and you are just too tired to climb. So you fall to your knees in front of it, exhausted, and you whisper, “Enough.” And somehow… it melts away. And you’re back at the crossroads. And you look at the signs again, and sigh, and turn away from the Writer’s Path and take the other road – the road that doesn’t loop or meander, that leads straight out of here – into a whole other set of traps and fancies, to be sure, but they are no longer the Writer’s Path or its problems. And you can do this. Many people have.
You can, if you aren’t completely defeated, try and look for a road around and struggle with the circumstances at the base of the cliff for a while. Often this will seem to give you an option, an “out”, but it frequently detours into marshes or into deserts or into the cold inhospitable vacuum of interstellar space. You are always free to say “Enough”, and you’re back at the crossroads again – but it depends on how much punishment you’re willing to endure.
Or… you still have a bit of grit left. You reach up, dig your fingers into invisible hand holds, fit your body against unforgiving stone, and you climb – because it is the only thing that you can do. And one of three things can happen here. You are unequal to the task, and you fail, and you fall, and you’re back at the crossroads and you bow your head and surrender. Or you prevail and climb to the top, but once you get there all you can see is more mountains to climb, more cliffs, more high peaks, more snows on Caradhras to drive you into Moria – and you can surrender here, and turn back and yes, you’re back at the crossroads again,
Or you get to the top and pause to catch your breath… and you see the Writer’s Path unwinding in front of you, leading down into a pleasant valley, and the name of the valley is Hope, and the name of the village you step into is Strength, and the name of the drink they offer you at the door of the inn is called Joy.
Even though you quickly realise that – although you now know this place is here and you can return to it any time you choose, even if only in memory or dream – the Writer’s Path does not end here. It goes on, beyond, somewhere ELSE, somewhere new. Perhaps there are more cliffs to be climbed, ahead. Perhaps you’ll find yourself back at the crossroads, yet again.
But the secret of the strength to choose the Path over and over, against all odds, is simply this. Through the shadows, through the agony, through the blood and sweat and tears and the pain, you must keep the faith. When all other voices fall silent there is that one, the last, the quiet one which will not be denied.
I am a writer. My blood flows through a writer’s veins. My mind is full of a writer’s dreams. My heart beats for the word and for the things that it means. My joy is the elixir of having written. I am a writer. I believe.
And after that… trust the faith to take you home.
